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BBC News (10 Dec 07) - A bra with sensors built into the fabric could help scientists make exercise a more comfortable experience for women.

Australian researchers believe their creation will help bra makers make their future designs a better fit. Exercising wearing a poorly-fitting bra can raise the risk of long-term injury. The findings, in the Journal of Biomechanics, may allow more accurate laboratory analysis of breast movement during exercise.

So far the fabric has been tested on two women, with size 36D and 38DD bra sizes, and recorded 6.9cm (2.7inches) of movement as the "larger" woman jogged on a treadmill.

The University of Wollongong researchers said that currently some large-breasted women could not take part in exercise because it was simply too painful. Breast pain is a major problem during exercise - a recent study by Dr Joanna Scurr at Portsmouth University found that between 45% and 60% of women suffered it during exercise, with a slow jog just as painful as a fast sprint for some.

Some estimates have suggested that up to 70% of women in the UK are actually wearing the wrong sized bra every day, increasing the chances of shoulder and back pain.

Dr Scurr said: "Any research which could improve bra design would be very welcome. Women need to make sure they are fitted for a bra, and don't keep the same bra for too long - I've spoken to some women who keep the same bra for 10 years.

Korea's new president Lee Myung Bak. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/wo...ld&oref=slogin
This seems to be the first landslide victory in History of Korea's presidential election as Lee Myung Bak had about near 50% of the vote. He is also currently being investigated for something with fraud with the stock, which I am not sure about. Though it seems that Korean people vote him for his economy policy, since that being their major issue rather then North Korea, which I didn't realize. One thing that I find intersesting about him is that he was born in Osaka, Japan, which is little strange, although it was during Japanese occupations of Korea so it's understandable.

Who in the world sues a 7 year old over a ski accident? People these days, just wanting all the money they can get.

Whoa, this is so sad! I mean seriously, grouchy old man suing a little boy who at MOST lost control of his skis...but like the parents said was actually going very slowly. Even if the kid was at fault for the accident, I'm sad the man can't think about the consequences of his suing this kid who has a lot of years ahead of him.

Also about that dolphin video, man.....I had to stop watching it less than halfway through. I'm no environmentalist, but that just reeks of animal cruelty, no matter how biased the guy speaking in the video is. It's still horrible to see. I'm shocked that they can't execute a safer way of getting the dolphins out of their fishing waters.

BBC News (27 Dec 07) - Benazir Bhutto followed her father into politics, and both of them died because of it - he was executed in 1979, she fell victim to an apparent suicide bomb attack. Her two brothers also suffered violent deaths. She was the last remaining bearer of her late father's political legacy.

Like the Nehru-Gandhi family in India, the Bhuttos of Pakistan are one of the world's most famous political dynasties. Benazir's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was prime minister of Pakistan in the early 1970s.

Born in 1953 in the province of Sindh and educated at Harvard and Oxford, Ms Bhutto gained credibility from her father's high profile, even though she was a reluctant convert to politics.

She was twice prime minister of Pakistan, from 1988 to 1990, and from 1993 to 1996. On both occasions she was dismissed from office by the president for alleged corruption. The dismissals typified her volatile political career, which was characterised by numerous peaks and troughs. At the height of her popularity - shortly after her first election - she was one of the most high-profile women leaders in the world.

Young and glamorous, she successfully portrayed herself as a refreshing contrast to the overwhelmingly male-dominated political establishment. But after her second fall from power, her name came to be seen by some as synonymous with corruption and bad governance.

Corruption charges
During both her stints in power, the role of Ms Bhutto's husband, Asif Zardari, proved highly controversial.

He played a prominent role in both her administrations, and has been accused by various Pakistani governments of stealing millions of dollars from state coffers - charges he denies, as did Ms Bhutto herself. Many commentators argued that the downfall of Ms Bhutto's government was accelerated by the alleged greed of her husband.

None of about 18 corruption and criminal cases against Mr Zardari has been proved in court after 10 years. But he served at least eight years in jail. He was freed on bail in 2004, amid accusations that the charges against him were weak and going nowhere.

Ms Bhutto also steadfastly denied all the corruption charges against her, which she said were politically motivated. She faced corruption charges in at least five cases, all without a conviction, until amnestied in October 2007.

Army mistrust Ms Bhutto returned to Pakistan on 18 October 2007 after President Musharraf signed into law an ordinance granting her and others an amnesty from corruption charges. In the months before her death, she had emerged again as a strong contender for power.

Some in Pakistan believe her secret talks with the military regime amounted to betrayal of democratic forces as these talks shored up President Musharraf's grip on the country. Others said such talks indicated that the military might at long last be getting over its decades-old mistrust of Ms Bhutto and her party, and interpreted it as a good omen for democracy.

Western powers saw in her a popular leader with liberal leanings who could bring much needed legitimacy to Mr Musharraf's role in the "war against terror".

My first reaction on seeing today's headlines was surprise. Then sadness at the realisation that another icon of our times has died under the most violent circumstances.

Her death is starkly reminiscent of the way that both Ghandi and Mrs Indira Ghandi had died many years ago. A sad reflection on the way politics is conducted on the Indian subcontinent.

To be sure, I do not really know much about Ms Benazir Bhutto, other than that she was once a very charismatic prime minister of Pakistan, and that she was toppled from power due to alleged corruption.

I do know that she was a famous person I often read about or watched on TV news. And I was also vaguely aware that she had only just returned to Pakistan not long ago, after a period of exile. Ironically, if she had not returned, she might still be alive today.

I can't say that she had been good for Pakistan. As far as Pakistani or Indian leaders go though, she was par on course for the norm. She was perhaps just a little more memorable for being the first woman to assume the highest political office in her nation.

This is how democracy works outside of the developed world. Not for the first time, I think it's premature to introduce democractic government in countries where the rule of law is not yet guaranteed. It's comforting to think that democractic, market-based capitalism may represent the End of History, but we should never forget that less than one quarter of the world lives in truly democratic governments today.

^ I knew about that yesterday. I am in India (for holiday) and its all over the paper and everything. There was a student commeration of her and everything. Is anyone in Pakistan, how the atmosphere over there.

My first reaction on seeing today's headlines was surprise. Then sadness at the realisation that another icon of our times has died under the most violent circumstances.

Her death is starkly reminiscent of the way that both Ghandi and Mrs Indira Ghandi had died many years ago. A sad reflection on the way politics is conducted on the Indian subcontinent.

To be sure, I do not really know much about Ms Benazir Bhutto, other than that she was once a very charismatic prime minister of Pakistan, and that she was toppled from power due to alleged corruption.

I do know that she was a famous person I often read about or watched on TV news. And I was also vaguely aware that she had only just returned to Pakistan not long ago, after a period of exile. Ironically, if she had not returned, she might still be alive today.

I can't say that she had been good for Pakistan. As far as Pakistani or Indian leaders go though, she was par on course for the norm. She was perhaps just a little more memorable for being the first woman to assume the highest political office in her nation.

This is how democracy works outside of the developed world. Not for the first time, I think it's premature to introduce democractic government in countries where the rule of law is not yet guaranteed. It's comforting to think that democractic, market-based capitalism may represent the End of History, but we should never forget that less than one quarter of the world lives in truly democratic governments today.

I'd say we're very, very far from "The End" indeed.

Rest in peace, Ms Benazir Bhutto.

Absolute madness, simply because these extremists cannot stand to have a secular woman in charge over their heads. These extremists have again and again sullied the name of the supposedly peaceful religion called Islam.

It's an open secret that Pakistan's security forces, which contains fundamentalist sympathizers, want Bhutto dead. It was them who orchestrated the coup and execution against her father, also an ex-PM, and it was also them who orchestrated the death of the general who toppled her father, so that they could remain in power by installing her as PM. Again, it was them who made up those corruption charges once they realized Bhutto was beyond their control.

So even if Musharraf is not the culprit, he's partly to blame for allowing such extremist elements in his security forces to infiltrate Bhutto's motorcade and thus allow any would-be suicide assassins to get near her.

It will take a long time for Pakistan to sort herself out with her departure.

... and once again the US has hung its hat with one single guy in the region rather than multi-lateral relations with all the major parties. And he's the guy who is aligning with hardliners and scum to protect his status.

A telephone call at midnight normally would have awoken Bill Whiting, but he hadn't been sleeping much since his dog disappeared. He picked up the phone and couldn't believe what he heard.

Children were demanding $600 or else they would kill Edna, his beloved beagle mix. Whiting listened in horror to what sounded like the jingle of Edna's collar, and an animal yelping in pain. He agreed to pay the ransom.

What happened to Edna remains a mystery, but Philadelphia police have charged a 15-year-old with harassment, terroristic threats, theft by extortion and other counts for allegedly calling Whiting. Police have yet to find the dog.

Authorities gave no immediate explanation for how they traced the call.

"I've had tears today a couple of times. I don't see any happy news in this," a heartbroken Whiting said Friday. "I don't have a dog coming back, apparently." He also said he believes at least two children were involved.

__________________

"If the Gods could build me a ladder to the heavens, I'd climb up the ladder and drop a big elbow on the world."

They should save some time and effort and either lock that kid up for the rest of his life or execute him. He's not only torturing and killing animals, but chosing pets to torture the owner as well. He's a sociopath, probably a future serial killer, they just caught him earily.

I'm sure this wasn't the first animal he killed for his amusement. If he isn't stopped now, he'll likely make the jump to killing people before long. He's already at the point where just torturing and killing the animals isn't enough and he needs a person's reactions. How long before he decides to torture and kill people directly?

TYLER, Texas (AP) -- A man killed his girlfriend, then filleted and cooked parts of her body before calling police to tell them what he was doing, authorities said Sunday.

Christopher Lee McCuin allegedly killed his girlfriend and then called police to say he was boiling her body parts.

Christopher Lee McCuin, 25, called 911 on Saturday and told an emergency dispatcher he had killed Jana Shearer, 21, and was boiling her body parts at his mother's home, said Smith County Sheriff J.B. Smith.

When authorities arrived at the home, they found Shearer's mutilated body, one ear boiling in a pot of water on the stove and a fork sticking out of some human flesh sitting on a plate on the kitchen table.

Authorities said it was unclear whether McCuin consumed any part of Shearer's body.

"We cannot prove that he did," Smith told The Associated Press. "He was either going to, had been or led us to think that he was doing it."

Authorities believe Shearer, 21, was abducted from her home Friday night and killed. Her death and mutilation was apparently the beginning of a crime spree that also included McCuin allegedly stabbing the boyfriend of his estranged wife and breaking into a business.

The Straits Times (24 Jan 08) - A Vietnamese woman searching for her father worked at his home in Taiwan for seven months without realising their relationship.

Ms Tran Thi Kham, 40, travelled to Taiwan in 2005 hoping to find her biological father, who fell in love with her Vietnamese mother in Hong Kong in 1967. Ms Tran's mother became pregnant but had to return to Vietnam for family reasons. She died two months after giving birth, leaving the baby an engraved gold ring and a photo of her Taiwanese father. Ms Tran's father, Mr Tsai Han-chao, did not know of her existence.

After she arrived in Taipei, Mr Tsai hired her to look after his paralysed wife. After the woman died seven months later, Ms Tran was reassigned to a family on Kinmen island. Ms Tran then realised that she had left a bag containing her father's ring and photo at her former employer's home and asked the local police for help.

When Mr Tsai opened the bag, he immediately recognised the items he had given Ms Tran's mother and flew to Kinmen for a tearful reunion.

It's the stuff of epic tear-jerkers. I now know where Taiwanese novelists and TV producers get their inspiration from.

(01-24) 12:13 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- American scientists have built from scratch a synthetic chromosome containing all the genetic material needed to produce a primitive bacterium - a giant step toward the creation of artificial life.

The feat is described in an online edition of the journal Science released Thursday by researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute, in Rockville, Md. Venter is the Bay Area-born maverick whose laboratory techniques in the late 1990's led to the speedy decoding of the human genome, the entire set of genetic instructions for making a person.

Now, a team led by Dr. Hamilton Smith, director of the Venter Institute's Synthetic Biology Group, has manufactured from laboratory chemicals a ring of DNA containing all the genes of Mycoplasma genitalium - the tiniest bacteria ever found.

That means the team is tantalizingly close to slipping these artificial genes into the microscopic skin of one of these bugs, and if their plans work, sparking self-replicating life with a set of genes made by machines.

"If we'd done that already, we'd be letting people know. That's not the kind of secret you keep," said Venter, by telephone from Davos, Switzerland. "But I am virtually certain it will happen this year."

In earlier published reports, the Venter Institute team described how they were able to remove a natural chromosome from one Mycoplasma genitalium and implant it into the shell of another, but Venter said there are still several technical hurdles to pass before a similar procedure could work with the synthetic chromosome.

Although such a creature might pass for artificial life, it would not be entirely synthetic because only the genes would be machine made. In addition, scientists who work with much smaller viruses can now, almost routinely in elite laboratories, produce living viruses using laboratory designed genes.

What is different here is that the bacterial genome Venter's lab has fabricated is about 20 times larger than the longest viral genome ever made by machines. Consisting of sequences of paired chemicals represented by the letters A, C, T and G, a computer printout of the Mycoplasma chromosome fills 147 single-spaced pages of paper. The actual synthetic chromosome, Venter said, is "the largest molecule ever built by humans, by a large margin."

And unlike human-made viruses, a synthetic bacterium would be able to make copies of itself by cell division. Viruses must hijack the machinery of living cells to replicate, a reason many biologists consider them infectious agents rather than living things.

Once the laboratory produces living, replicating bacteria using this artificial chromosome, Venter scientists plan to strip away genes systematically, to find how few are truly necessary to sustain life. It is largely an academic exercise, but in the process the scientists hope to refine the tools for building living organisms from this fundamental base, and custom-design them to perform certain tasks - such as manufacturing fuel.

"We are sparking an industrial revolution," said Venter, a flamboyant and often controversial figure in biotechnology who is not accustomed to small ideas. He also has built a track record of achieving the big ones. He pioneered techniques that led the U.S. government to declare that the outline of the human genome had been mapped in 2000, and that the entire sequence had been decoded by 2003. The one human being on the planet whose entire genome has been converted into code is Craig Venter.

Reached at his new laboratory in La Jolla - a West Coast outpost for the Venter Institute, Synthetic Biology chief Smith said it cost over $1 million to farm out the construction of the bacterial genome to independent contractors who can fabricate chains of synthetic DNA. "It's become a commodity now," said Smith. The pieces took about four months for the contractors to make, using machines that build DNA chains, one molecular link at a time.

It took a large team of scientists in Rockville to stitch together those segments into a single chromosome - a continuos chain of DNA making up about 500 distinct genes.

The secret to the success of the project was finding ways to assemble the 100 pieces into sub-groups, then joining the subgroups into successive larger pieces, until the entire genome could be spliced together from four lengthy chains.

Inside Smith's lab, the heavy lifting was performed by yeast bacteria, which were genetically engineered to manufacture the largest sequences of DNA.